It can be difficult to define conservatism. Mr. Levin has done about as good a job in a short space as can be done, I suppose, though his brevity almost necessarily leaves what he has to say about the various factions within conservatism something of an oversimplification. Quite a lot of conservatives will scarcely admit that a Neocon is a conservative at all (I have to grit my teeth when contemplating the idea), for example, and personally, while I think that libertarians have many ideas that overlap with conservatism, libertarianism is not really a division of conservatism. Also, I think a good case could be made for an "emphasis on faith and values" being the means of "preserving the culture," which would mean that "social conservatism" and Paleoconservatism would not necessarily be as easy to distinguish from one another as Mr. Levin might make them out to be.

I do think that Mr. Levin is right in his basic idea, though, that "There is simply no scientific or mathematical formula that defines conservatism." Conservatism, in my opinion, is more a method, more an approach to the maintenance of a society than it is a laundry-list of popular positions. It proceeds largely from certain bedrock ideas and presuppositions, but it is far more flexible in application than many of its detractors think.